The entry-level budget smartphone segment has evolved over the years, with smartphone makers now bringing features which were once restricted to flagship devices. With Chinese companies like Xiaomi turning the heat on, others have followed suit. One such example is Intex Elyt Dual which is a budget smartphone priced at Rs. 6,999 but offers dual selfie cameras.

With the Elyt Dual smartphone, the company is looking to take on the likes of Xiaomi Redmi Y1 Lite, Redmi 4 and Tenor E. Does the Intex Elyt Dual stand tall against the competitors? Let’s find out.

Design
The Intex Elyt Dual features a polycarbonate body, and a comes with a removable back cover. Intex has tried to add a premium feel to the phone with the matte finish on the rear panel and adding antenna strips on the top and bottom of the device similar to the several other smartphones launching these days.

In addition, the Elyt Dual is perfectly sized with curved edges, making it easier to grip the device. The only major downside of the smartphone is that it comes without a fingerprint scanner, something which is present in the majority of devices available at this price point. With Tenor launching a fingerprint scanner smartphone at Rs 4,999 (Tenor D), Intex should have added this feature.

Other than that, the device comes with micro USB charging port present on the bottom and a 3.5mm jack right next to it. The power button is placed to the right of the device and along with the volume rocker buttons. Overall, it would have been great if Intex has gone with the metal body because the device feels cheap when taken into hands, especially when compared to the Xiaomi Redmi 4.

Display and Performance
The Elyt Dual comes with a 5-inch IPS HD display with 720 x 1280 pixel resolution and 2.5D curved glass coating on the top. The display is pretty decent with sharp colours, making it easily visible even in bright outdoors. And thankfully, Intex has added an HD panel to the smartphone.

A quad-core Spreadtrum 9850 chipset paired with 2GB of RAM powers the Elyt Dual. The internal storage of the device is 16GB which can be further expanded to 128GB via MicroSD card. The performance seems smooth for running the basic apps, but you cannot expect it to handle high-performance games or apps. Basic games such as Beach Buggy Racing, Super Mario Run took ages to load, and the performance was not smooth too.

The smartphone runs the Android 7.0 Nougat operating system out of the box and offers near Stock Vanilla experience. The stock Android helps the smartphone run seamlessly when performing basic functions when compared to other devices. In real life scenarios, I did not notice any software issues with the device. Intex has optimised the software on the Elyt Dual perfectly. Also, there’s no mentioning of Android 8.0 Oreo roll out to the smartphone.

Camera
The major highlight of the Intex Elyt Dual is the presence of dual front-facing shooters. The front shooter is a combination of an 8MP camera and a 2MP in-depth sensor. There’s also an 8MP primary shooter with dual LED flash that can also be used for shooting in the dark.

The interesting thing is that the camera app comes with the Bokeh Effect, 3D Noise Reduction (3D NR), and Background Change Effect, in addition to various filters on the Intex Elyt Dual. The app also comes with a Dermabrasion feature which, the company claims can remove uneven lines scars and acne from the images captured.

The real-life performance of the selfie camera is sub-par. The bokeh algorithm works decent in good lighting conditions, but the same doesn’t apply to low-light images though. Also, the bokeh effect looks unreal as you can see in the image. The rear camera isn’t the best one of the two. In fact, it just doesn’t match with the shooters present on the Redmi 4 or the Tenor E.

Though the Elyt Dual isn’t the best camera phone out there, the device still offers decent optics, and the front camera portrait mode is very much welcome at the price point. And more importantly, it gets the job done for what it is made for.

Battery
The Elyt Dual comes with a 2400mAh battery, which is comparatively less than what other budget smartphones are offering. Competitors like Xiaomi are offering much larger battery up to 4000mAh, so it is a huge letdown from the homegrown company. Right from the day one, the low battery capacity showed its results. With very moderate usage, the phone will last for a day, but with decent usage, you will end up plugging into the charger at least twice a day.

Conclusion
In a competitive market where phones like the Redmi 5A are offering much better features at a very smaller price point, it will be a tough sell for Intex. The biggest downside of the device is the battery and the lack of fingerprint sensor. Still, the Elyt Dual is pretty good for those looking to buy a decent selfie phone with bokeh effect. The stock Android is another plus point for the smartphone.

As speculated, Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has launched a new phone in India- the Honor 8 Lite. As the name itself suggests, the device is a smaller variant of the popular Honor 8, which has a dual camera at the back.

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